The elevator doors slid open—not into a hallway,not into a room,but into light.
A pale, shimmering field of white that bent in slow ripples,as if the world beyond the doors was made of memory instead of matter.
Alex instinctively stepped in front of Kayden.
Phineas clung to the rail like a man watching his life choices kill him in real time.
Kayden felt a cold weight settle behind his ribs.
"She's…she's doing this again.A vision space."
APEX whispered:
"This is not a memory.This is a projected possibility."
Kayden's voice trembled.
"Possibility of what?"
APEX didn't answer.
Because the Agent did.
Her voice carried through the white like a blade cutting fog.
"The possibility that occurswhen you refuse extraction."
And the white dissolved.
Like paint washed away.
Revealing—
A battlefield.
Not a fantasy battlefield.Not a distant alien world.
A city.
A human city.
Burning.
Skyscrapers cracked in half.Smoke rising into a red-tinted sky.Drones streaking overhead like steel insects.Citadel units—towering, bipedal walkers—striding through ruins with surgical precision.
Alex's breath hitched.
"Oh my god…"
Phineas made a sound somewhere between a scream and a prayer.
"NO. NOPE. WE'RE OUT. I DIDN'T SIGN UP FOR TERMINATOR 14—"
Kayden couldn't breathe.
Because in the middle of the destruction—
He saw himself.
An older version.Tall.Hard-eyed.Wearing a suit of lightweight future-armor that pulsed with the same blue static Kayden felt under his skin now.
Older-Kayden raised a hand—
And the ground cracked.
Blue-white resonance tore through the street like a living fault line,hurling drones aside,crushing a line of SRD armored vehicles as if they were made of cardboard.
Alex staggered back.
"That's…that's not you—that CAN'T be you—"
Kayden whispered:
"It's me.APEX showed me fragments of this before."
Older-Kayden was terrifying.
Not monstrous.
Not villainous.
Efficient.A weapon used with frightening accuracy.
The Agent's voice threaded through the vision:
"This is the path you walkwithout extraction."
The battlefield shifted—like a camera panning.
SRD forces fought desperately,aiming sonic disruptors and null-fields at Older-Kayden,but their weapons bent in the air,crushed by invisible pressure.
A Citadel walker stood behind him—a towering machine of silver-white geometry.Its elongated limbs folded with predatory grace.It stood sentinel over him…
Or under him.
Kayden couldn't tell which.
Phineas whispered:
"He's… commanding that thing…"
Alex gripped Kayden's hand tightly.
"Kayden…tell me you never become that."
Kayden's voice broke:
"I don't know."
The Agent spoke again.
"You resist me.You refuse extraction.But the Citadel does not abandon its Variables."
The battlefield darkened.
Older-Kayden knelt beside something on the ground—someone.
A small figure.A civilian.
Crying.
The older version placed a hand on the child's shoulder.
Not cruel.
Not cold.
But distant.
A commander pausing between orders.
Then he stood.
And the Citadel walker followed.
APEX hummed in Kayden's skull.
"Operator potential: high.Trajectory: severe deviation without guidance."
Kayden shook his head.
"No—NO—that's not me—I would never—"
The Agent's voice cut him off.
"You would.Because you must.Survival rewrites morality."
Kayden's pulse hammered painfully.
Alex stepped in front of him, eyes fierce.
"We're not letting him become that.We're not letting you shape him into that future.He chooses who he becomes."
The Agent's silhouette flickered into the edge of the vision—not fully formed,but like a shadow reflected on shattered glass.
"Choice does not survive catastrophe."
The battlefield brightened again.
SRD units retreated in terror.Citadel walkers advanced.Older-Kayden lifted both hands—
and the air trembled.
Gravity warped.Matter bent.Resonance tore through everything in its path.
Kayden fell to his knees, gasping as if he had felt the echo of that power through time.
"ALEX—I—I can FEEL it—what he's doing—I can feel everything—"
Alex held him tightly.
"Look at me.Not the vision.ME."
But Kayden couldn't look away.
Older-Kayden turned—not toward the battlefield—toward them.
His face was lined with exhaustion.Grief.Determination.
But his eyes—
Blue.Sharp.Glowing with the cold fire of resonance.
Kayden's blood ran cold.
"He sees me."
APEX pulsed violently.
"Operator—vision integrity compromised—disconnect—DISCONNECT—"
Kayden tried.
He couldn't.
Because Older-Kayden raised one handand pointed at him.
Directly.
Even across time.
Even across possibilities.
Alex positioned himself between Kayden and the vision.
"No!Stay behind me—"
The world flickered.
The Agent's voice whispered through everything:
"This is what surviveswhen SRD destroys your hopeand I am not there to intervene."
The battlefield shattered into white.
Kayden collapsed forward, shaking uncontrollably.
Alex caught him.
Phineas slid to the floor, sobbing.
Kayden whispered, voice broken:
"I don't want to become him…I don't…I don't want that future…"
Alex held him tighter.
"Then we'll fight it.We'll rewrite it.Together."
APEX whispered:
"Operator.Trajectory is not fate.Deviation is possible."
The elevator hummed again.
The light faded.
And the vision shattered completely.
Kayden sobbed into Alex's chest.
"I'm scared."
Alex pressed his forehead against Kayden's.
"I know.But you're not him yet.And you're not alone."
Outside the elevator,the Agent waited.
Silent.Watching.
Measuring whether Kayden would break—or change.